Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Volunteers, Interns, Teachers, Hooray!

in october 2011, we started school. we had just 25 students and two teachers, a kid to sit in the office and a doorman to make sure nobody stole our precious treasures. in october of 2011, i can tell you i had no idea we'd be where we are now - i thought we'd still be struggling along with 25 kids while the rest of the world passed us by.

here we are - march 2013 - with 90 students, 5 teachers, a cook a doorman and a plethora of visitors and volunteers. it's amazing that in this short amount of time we've been blessed with the funds and support we need to make this project a reality. to offer a quality education for a super low cost and a really needy neighborhood. i. am. in. love.

it's been a hard year - i've expressed that a ton on the blog - stressful, frustrating, i-want-to-punch-you-in-the-face kind of hard. but it's been so amazing as well - we're seeing kids learn and learning to love learning (ha!), we're seeing this little flower blossoms bloom into amazingly beautiful flowers. teachers are learning new techniques and being equipped for the future.

it's insane.

and it's time to start looking into the future. our teacher jewel made it here this year on sheer "god". we connected through this blog and after throwing out ideas of other ministries that might need her, she got tugged back to us and seriously, we are so blessed. i mean, who does that? futuro lleno de esperanza had no webpage, no facebook page, nothing to show for ourselves and she took the leap and (thankfully) landed on both feet and took off running.

so. about two weeks ago, i started putting together some job descriptions and investigating where to post our "job listings." i signed up for idealist.org and christianvolunteering.org and sent out the listing to several university intern and job boards.

it's so real. we're looking for some long term volunteers / interns. esl teachers, center coordinators, bilingual educators. we're also looking for special volunteers (art, dance, karate, gym, music teachers...) for shorter time commitments.

Requirements: Associates Degree (or equivalent hours) or higher. Desire to live and serve in the Dominican Republic. Heart for children. Spanish, French or Haitian Creole competency (read: you can get by) for long term, non-ESL volunteers.

aren't they beautiful?

Responsibilities: Plan and implement grade-level appropriate classes (according to our school curriculum). Love the students! Some community-development involvement (extra-curricular classes, family visitation, special activity days). Average hours per week: 25

We do offer a small living stipend to our volunteers/interns, however we encourage all international staff to raise funds to offset cost of living. There is a shared-housing option for volunteers.

find me on instagram!

girl in the DR.

that's me, the authoress of this blog. living it up in the dominican republic. trying to balance being an english professor, a mom, wife and woman extrordinaire. doing my best to make a difference in this crazy world.

girl's husband,

moved up from teacher to coordinator to district supervisor, he's helping to improve the dominican education system a little at a time.